Hurrah For Smart Internet!

Denver configured his mobile phone to connect to the internet, plugged the USB cable from the mobile to this laptop, and voila! I am online! I thought that having no phone line and no Unsecured Wireless Network would make this portable useless to me at home.

This is so much cheaper than going to a Wi-Fi hot spot! Remember Starbucks Silver City? Wi-Fi cost me a hundred bucks an hour. Smart Internet only costs ten pesos for thirty minutes, plus, I have free coffee at home, and won't have to worry about running low on battery. The only snag is that I have to put up with Denver's terrible snorring while browsing.

Prattle

First Time

I got my brand spanking new Inspiron E1505 last night. Before you exclaim big time, I'd like to declare that this was issued by the company. So it's not really mine. What's exciting about the whole thing is that it has Windows Vista, and I get to take it home. Ok, so there's no Wi-Fi signal in our tiny apartment, but hey, I can easily bring this portable to a Wi-Fi hot spot. And that's what I intend to do today.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Turns out nothing is for free. I am back from Starbucks Silver City. I was able to logon to my Gmail and Friendster accounts, but only after purchasing a P100 Airborne Access card. For someone who used to be a Tech Support Rep, I'm a real klutz when it comes to new technology. I am so confident asking a customer to strip down a desktop over the phone, but I don't know the first thing about enabling the wireless connection in this portable. Denver had to make me feel like an idiot before I got it.

Having this laptop is cool. At least I can write here without having to worry that someone is reading from behind me. I hate that. I still have to get used to the touchpad. I fucking don't know how to drag a window without a real mouse. Stupid user. First time eh.

Broker Than Broke

It's January 25. Five days more until pay day. I am completely broke. Rest day sucks when you have no cash to burn. My one and only credit card is maxed out. Pay day is not so exciting knowing that I have to allot most of my salary for bills. Due this pay period are my electric bill, water bill, yaya's salary, credit card bill, groceries and more groceries.

My teammate just sent me an SMS. His wife is giving birth as of writing. I just attempted to reply to him and found out that I am out of cellphone load. I am so poor.

My right foot hurts. Must be from running in the beach during our vacation in Galera last week. I was practicing running in tip toe. Silly me. My bad foot is a valid excuse for skipping badminton. Wholesome activities can be expensive sometimes.

Yesterday was badminton day. I was too damn tired by the end of my shift that I decided to take a nap instead of playing with my team. At noon, I had to get up for our team building in Dampa.

Seafood Heaven

Served on the table were Sipit in Garlic and Butter, Fried Sipit, Chilli Crab, Ginataang Alimango, Ginataang Sugpo, Tempura, Calamares, Baked Tahong, Buttered Tahong, Ensalada and three other dishes that I didn't try (another sipit dish, Sweet and Sour Pusit and Fish Sinigang). I had bottomless Iced Tea and half a cup of rice with all that. There really wasn't any more room for dessert. I didn't have any more appetite by dinner time.

The best thing about lunch is that I only had to shell out P100. It was Jover's birthday last Sunday and he suggested we all go to Dampa instead of your usual beer and pulutan. He gave the team P3000 to spend on the wet market. Our "paluto," rice and beverage amounted to around P2300. I asked Paula, our team treasurer to take P1600 from our team funds. We split the difference among the rest of the team members. A hundred from each of us. Not bad for a cholesterol feast.

Proud Momma

I am quite pleased with my team. My current roster has been together since May 2006. I guess we have bonded in all those months. When we were just starting out, one or two would always be missing during Team G.A.s, but now, everyone is "game." During our last team meeting, I asked each one of them about their level of satisfaction in the company. It's good to know that we all have something in common. The relationships we have built are one of the few things that keep us going to work everyday.

I often wonder about my ex-AfterBurners. Any "momma" would be proud to see her children moving on and up. I pray that they find some motivation to keep them going as well. Good things come to those who wait. I've seen this time and time again.

Real Life Mom

Lying face down on the mattress, my son decided that he wanted a horse ride. Normally, kids would saddle-sit on your back, but no, not my son. He planted his fat butt on my head. Yes, he saddle-sat on my head, making breathing for dear life a challenge. So this is how it is to be a real mom. I love it.

Written on Jan-25

The Hurried Woman

Since joining my new shift, my workload has become heavier. My life, of course, is more stressful now. Once again, I am clocking-in an additional two hours everyday to finish all my tasks. I don’t know if I should welcome this change. Yes, I am tired everyday, but I am more productive. I must admit that I was too relaxed in Q4. I did not give a hundred percent to my team back then, and I am thankful they understand. I will definitely make it up to them this quarter.

Anyway, right now I am so stressed that I can’t get up to get myself some lunch. My team is on lunch. I am left here because I am so fucking dizzy, and there are no Lazy Boys left for me to rest in at the quiet lounge. It seems that half of the lunching population is more interested in catching Zzz’s instead of stuffing up on KFC or McDonald’s Value Meals.

So I’m dizzy and I’m thinking I must have high blood because my nape and shoulder area are really tense. I don’t want to move around at all. I feel like I’m about to throw up anytime, but I don’t have any plans of getting my blood pressure checked in the clinic. Why? Because I’m never diagnosed with high blood pressure. In fact, even as I was giving birth via C-section, my BP was perfectly normal, and I could hear the doctors and nurses discussing how surprising that was, considering that my baby was already distressed.

Wait. Maybe I am just super stressed. That’s it. I think I have the “Hurried Woman Syndrome.” I am always in a rush even when I am just at home getting ready to go to the mall or some place unimportant.

I still have problems sleeping. I still rely on Diphenhydramine HCI for a few peaceful hours.

What are my stressors? Pressure in the office. Deadlines. Team Performance. Images of Denver’s whore. Phone calls from the whore’s best friend (Wild Black Boar). Denver’s temper. Budgeting. Loud people around me. I have a lot of stressors, but the rest are really minor, and I think I have learned to become more tolerant of things I detest. Proof is the picture of the slut in my blog site. See what I mean?

This entry doesn’t really have a purpose, like most of my entries. I am really just consuming my lunch-hour. I could make a point though. Sometimes, people embrace stress to cope with heartbreak, frustration or disappointment from past and present. I think I am ready to pour myself into my work again, because sulking over shit is so done! Time to get your act together Hurried Woman!

Written on Jan-23

Caught The Tramp

My friendster shout-out says this: If you stink like fish, stop looking. Slut.

I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t help myself. This is my chance to tell Denver’s whore that I know she’s looking. I took a screenshot.

The pathetic tramp calls herself Fishy’s Wife. Fishy, is what she calls the boyfriend whom she cheated on. How the fuck can she call herself Fishy’s Wife after sleeping with another man? What a hypocrite.

Hey whore! Why don’t you try calling yourself Everyone’s Slut? It seems more appropriate. Ü

On Krispy Kreme, Flooding And Overtime

I just searched Google and found out that Krispy Kreme Doughnuts is located at the Fort. They have a second store in SM Megamall. I was hoping to taste these infamous doughnuts during my rest day but I was looking in the wrong place. My teammate mistakenly advised for me to visit Tiendesitas.

I don’t feel so well. I feel like I’m about to come down with the flu. I’ve had very little sleep these past three days. I woke up at 12:00AM today. My shift started at 10:30PM last night. I’m not sure how my new boss will take this. Anyway, I thought of going on half day (which will make my shift start at 3:30AM), but when I thought of my day’s tasks, I forced myself up and got to work at 1:00AM.

My throat hurts. I’m on my third bottle of water. My water container stores 800ml of liquid. This is really good. I’ve been flooding my body with water for the past week, hoping it would help remove toxins and clear my skin. Naturally, this “flooding” therapy has increased my toilet trips. Sometimes I have to pull my pants down before I can even fully close the cubicle door.

My cleansing attempt has also brought an old pal back in our medicine cabinet… Super Colon Cleanse. It’s a fiber supplement that guarantees regularity. And boy, are they good with their promises. I used to be constipated but this baby is “depleting” me at least five times a day. I think I’ve only been on it for three days. I hope to see and feel results in a couple of weeks.

Outlook is down. Or at least my server is down. I can’t get much of my work done. My means of communicating with my team is either by passing around notes, or through sign language. The mute function in our Avaya units have been disabled on purpose so crosstalk is not an option.

Our big boss approached me to ask for overtime commitments from my team. The team did a great job today, hitting our ACD quota of 120 calls with still two hours left before the end of our shift. I’ve offered the team members free breakfast in exchange for rendering an hour of overtime but nobody seems interested. I guess that people are just exhausted.

I’m exhausted and I’m not handling calls. I just hope that O.T. season ends soon for the sake of peace and harmony.

On G.C.s, Savings And Silly Goals

I’m excited to spend the next two days (my rest days) at home. I’ve just been to NBS to use my GC and this is what I got - Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I honestly wanted to stick with my list, but NBS Robinson’s Galleria had a poor collection. I did find a copy of Kafka On The Shore, but it was hard bound and worth over P900. My GC was only worth P300 and I’m not prepared to shell out my own cash for Kafka. Maybe more like can’t really afford it.

Anyway, the book is really thin so I should be able to finish this quickly.

Oh, and I just found out that NBS doesn’t give you change if you don’t consume the full GC amount. I thought that these things are as good as cash. Starbucks gave me my ten peso change when I bought drinks using GCs. I’m not sure if this is a stupid policy or if I just dealt with a stupid cashier.

I’m thinking about what I want to save up for this month (month, hopefully, but I just may not be able to fulfill it in a month’s time).

Microwave oven roughly P3000
Kitchen Rack worth P1500

Adidas Badminton Shoes, proposed budget P2500, stretched budget P3200
Happy Feet Limited Edition for only P1400

It may not look like a lot to some people, but P8400 to P9100 is not a small amount for me. I really hope to be better with my finances this 2007.

My goals:
Zero-out my credit card (just one - BPI)
Finish paying off my salary loans (Standard Chartered, HSBC and SSS)
Get life insurance and be able to maintain payment
Have more than just the maintaining balance in my bank account
Afford to pamper myself more this year

Hmm… The last one seems to be in conflict with all my other goals. Doesn’t matter. I’m up for this challenge.

The G.R.O. Party

eTel had its annual Christmas party on December 17 at the PICC Forum. I’ve been meaning to post a picture from this event but it took a while for me to get rid of the ugly usiseras in the background.

Like most people I know, my main motivation for attending the Christmas party was the raffle. The company was giving out P50,000, trips to Hong Kong, and gadgets I can’t afford. I won a rice cooker in the 2003 Christmas party, and since then I always have this feeling that I’m going to win in any raffle. I never won again but the feeling just won’t go away.

Anyway, the party sucked. First off, there weren’t enough seats. Did they expect us to have dinner standing up? We managed to sit on one of the stairs near the buffet. The food wasn’t all that great too. As for the program, I stopped paying attention shortly after getting to the venue. I could hear the host speaking but I couldn’t understand a word coming out of his mouth. Must be a problem with the sound system.

The event really was a G.R.O. party of sorts (heavy make-up, short skirts, scarred legs, dark knees, just a bunch of wannabes in every corner).

The only good thing that happened on that night was seeing old friends. This picture is a mix of my old and new teams… Groove Armada, Alpha Trion and my very own AfterBurn. I wish more of the old and new members were in this picture.

A Few Hours On My Own

There are times when I miss being just by myself. On the day of my leave, I was contemplating on things I could do on my own. My day didn’t turn out exactly as I had planned, mainly because I didn’t have enough energy having had little sleep after a full shift. Still, it was a good day to be on my own again.

Dec-30, Morning

In a funk, I decided not to get a cab going home today. Aside from my shoulder bag, I had to carry a big Barbie doll bag filled with Lays, Pringles, Doritos, Crunch, Toblerone, Yanyan, Chips Ahoy, Kit Kat and Oreo Candy Bars. This is the goody bag I got from attending a “chill out session” with our managers… not a bad way to waste 1.5 hours.

Oh, and aside from these goodies, I threw in my Starbucks tumbler and a separate water container in the bag. Must have made it two pounds heavier.

I met up with Erika just before heading home and she handed over Ippo’s Christmas gift. No problem going home with all this stuff on the day I decide to commute (5 minute walk + tricycle + jeepney). Did I mention I was wearing heels?

At home

My son was delighted to see the bag full of junk food. For some reason, the first thing he grabbed was the tube of Pringles. We opened his Christmas gift and plagued our mattress with Pringles’ crumbs. He saw me holding a Kit Kat and from then on he just couldn’t stay away from me. Mental note – buy more Kit Kat today.

My mom told me to take my leave (since I was still thinking about going to work). She has plans with friends. Denver is in Antipolo. That leaves Ippo, his heaven sent yaya and me. I’m not exactly alone but this is the first time in a very long time that I was going to be without my mom or Denver. Besides, Ippo’s yaya and I barely speak so it was destined to be a silent day. No arguments, no conversations, only Ippo’s gobbledygook.

After beef tapas, time for siesta. I intended to read a few chapters of my current book, but after a few paragraphs, I was dead to the world.

I think I snoozed for only a couple of hours. My mom was gone when I woke up. I wanted to go back to sleep but I could hear Startalk on television. That was enough to get me up. Not a lot of good stuff in local showbiz today.

After Startalk, I took a shower, kissed my son goodbye and started walking. By the way, he cried when I left.

I walked from my home, all the way to SM Hypermarket. It wasn’t a long walk, but it was enough to make me pant. On the way there, I noticed for the first time that there are a lot of fish in Pasig River. I had to cross Sandoval Bridge and I took notice of these black creatures moving very near the surface. Oh well, I just thought it amusing looking at them. Must be fun to fish, but I wouldn’t dare eat them.

At the overpass, I attempted to tiptoe. Denver wants me to tiptoe when playing badminton. Just four steps up and my calves were already in grief. I must remember to practice more often. Enough for today though.

First task. Pay Meralco bill. A whopping P3,042.45. I wonder why my electric bill shot up to this amount. I think it was around P900 to P1000 less back in October.

Too many shoppers. I decided to do the grocery shopping a bit later and went to Tiendesitas for some window shopping. I was just supposed to look around, but I bought two pairs of shorts on impulse (1 sleep shorts and 1 badminton shorts). I got some new underwear for the New Year too. I took my time looking around since I had no responsibilities waiting for me.

Went back to SM for my groceries… Ippo’s diapers, 1 kilo of sirloin steak, over 1 kilo of pork belly, half a kilo of bacon, soybean oil, Downy and 6000 ml of Ippo’s water. Drat! That was heavy. And to think I wanted to walk going home.

I had to put down my grocery bags a few times before reaching the street where I hailed a cab. I was hesitant to get in because the cabbie looked like a crook but there were just too many people wanting to get a cab on a night like this so I went for it. A few minutes later, I was in our compound struggling with the grocery bags. I paid the driver sixty bucks. The schmuck did not have a working meter. I knew he was some kind of crook.

At home, I still hadn’t figured out what to have for dinner. I intended to buy roasted chicken at Hypermarket, but I already had 3 heavy bags, and the queue was quite terrible. I asked Mai to make some soup, while Ippo and I went out to walk around the compound.
Darn, I forgot Ippo's Kit Kat.

Still no mom and still no Denver, I went to check out the nearest internet place. The place was packed with grimy kids. I saw a chicharon stand and bought 100 g of chicharon bituka. Dinner problem solved.

Things I wanted to do but didn’t do out of exhaustion:
Read book in Starbucks Silver City.
Go to National Bookstore (Mega or Eastwood) and use my P300 GC.
Watch Juday’s MMFF entry (alone of course).

Aside from my exhaustion, I also felt bad about leaving Ippo. I've missed sleeping next to my son.

I didn’t have dinner. Instead, I took my third shower for the day, asked Mai to go ahead and eat by herself, took Ippo to our room, wrestled him, and fed him, until he was finally knocked down.

I had my soup, chicharon bituka, tapa leftovers and jasmine rice while Ippo was sleeping. I was eating with so much gusto until this faith healer segment of Imbestigador was shown. The healer was sucking illness away. There was a woman with tumors in her breasts. The old male healer sucked her breasts to make them well. What disgusting crap!

I spoke with Denver on the phone. He said he was going home. He asked if I wanted to go to Starbucks. I said yes but I was knocked out myself.

I stayed beside Ippo, watching him sleep, until finally, Denver arrived. We stayed in and I told him about my day.

I was by myself for just a few hours. I had a nice time.